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New York City's MTA hearings wrap up tonight at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan. If experience is any guide, we'll get to watch a parade of pols harangue the MTA Board without offering much in the way of solutions for the underlying financial problems plaguing transit.

But if our elected officials really want to stick up for their constituents, maybe one of them will mention these numbers on student transportation in New York City. As Noah reported Monday, taxpayer support for student transit passes -- which move nearly 600,000 NYC schoolkids -- pales beside the huge outlay for yellow school buses, which transport about 150,000 students. The state and city literally spend pennies per trip on student MetroCards, while the Department of Education's billion-dollar budget for yellow buses works out to about $19 for every student trip.

The long-term trend shows that school bus costs are, quite simply, out of control:

Remind me again -- where's all the waste and bloat in transportation spending? If New York City bent the curve of rising yellow bus costs just a bit, millions could be restored to fund student MetroCards. But the way things stand, we're spending more tax dollars on less efficient school buses while allowing support for student transit to wither.

Noah Kazis contributed reporting to this post.

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When Cabinet secretaries appear in front of Congress' appropriations committees, which control the annual budgets for each federal agency, the proceedings tend to be dry affairs dominated by local concerns and arcane fiscal debates.

But Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood's visit with Senate appropriators today was anything but humdrum, as Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) challenged him repeatedly to defend the White House's efforts on sustainable development and high-speed rail.

Bond cited a recent Wall Street Journal editorial by Wendell Cox, a conservative pundit who has penned laudatory literature for road lobbying groups, in accusing the Obama administration of frittering away taxpayers' money on high-speed rail.

LaHood fired back, remarking wryly that Bond's home state sought high-speed rail grants and publicly celebrated its $31 million haul. "I got calls on this every day from senators and governors" clamoring for an opportunity to build inter-city passenger rail, LaHood said.

Answering Bond's charge that the rail funding process was less than transparent, the U.S. DOT chief threw in a bold claim: "I don't know of one lobbyist that darkened our door with an application … that came to our door with the idea they were going to have some edge."

A November investigation by the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity found that more than 50 government entities and private companies have hired high-speed rail lobbyists, including the AFL-CIO, the Mayo Clinic, and overseas train manufacturers such as Siemens and Bombardier.

The sharpest exchange between Bond and LaHood came on the topic of walkable local development, which the U.S. DOT has worked to promote through $150 million in 2010 grants and an inter-agency partnership with housing and environmental protection officials.

"What is livability?" Bond asked LaHood, minutes after comparing the task of defining the term to defining pornography. (The origins of that reference are explained here.)

"Communities where people have access to many different forms of transportation, and affordable housing... maybe they don't want a car, so they can walk to work or take mass transit to work," LaHood said, using the newly built-up neighborhood surrounding his office as an example.

Bond's reply summed up the challenge of crafting new federal transportation policy in an era marked by rural-urban-suburban culture clashes. "I've got a lot of constituents for whom livability means having a decent highway," he said. "They've got to drive between one town and another town."

LaHood gamely tried to put Bond's criticism in perspective, noting that highways received the lion's share -- $27 billion -- of the transportation funding in last year's economic stimulus law.

Yet Bond only dug in his heels, arguing that Americans had shown their eagerness to use roads and bridges but would not embrace rail or walkable infrastructure. "When did it become the responsibility of the federal DOT to build sidewalks?" the soon-to-retire senator asked, before LaHood that reminded him Congress set up dedicated funding for pedestrian improvements nearly 20 years ago.

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Over an 11-day span in February, three off-duty NYPD officers were arrested for driving under the influence. One was nabbed as he sat behind the wheel of a double-parked car in Harlem. The other two were involved in serious crashes, one of which ended with the officer's car overturned on a Midtown Manhattan sidewalk. It's of little comfort that the resulting injuries -- to four people in all -- were limited to those inside the vehicles, when the casualty count could just as easily have included a totally innocent victim.

Following two incidents late last year in which off-duty cops killed pedestrians, then refused to submit to Breathalyzer tests, Commissioner Ray Kelly worked with city district attorneys to expedite the collection of blood evidence from motorists arrested on suspicion of driving drunk. But as civil service newsweekly The Chief-Leader reported after the deaths of Vionique Valnord and Drana Nikac, Kelly has yet to match the department's zero tolerance drug abuse policy with one that addresses cops who drink and drive.

The paper speculates that Kelly's inaction may stem from drinking as an accepted facet of cop culture, despite the fact that driving drunk can be at least as harmful as the use of illegal drugs:

[W]hile it's legal to drink, it isn't to then drive when under the influence. And those who do so are committing at least as serious a crime as those who use cocaine or heroin; in some cases more so, since the NYPD's one-strike-and-you're-out drug policy makes no distinction between those who abuse them without leaving their homes but come up dirty on a subsequent test and those who are out in the street presenting a potential menace whether behind the wheel or not.

When an off-duty homicide detective killed himself last September by slamming into a garbage truck on the BQE, union reps called for NYPD to change the way it handles detectives' shift assignments in hopes of reducing drinking and driving during off-hours. To our knowledge Kelly himself has taken no action to put a stop to a chronic problem that every day endangers the lives of city police officers and civilians alike. 

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The New Domino development proposed for the Williamsburg waterfront made headlines last week when a Brooklyn Community Board 1 committee voted against enabling its construction. This privately financed project is worth a close look because it exemplifies how developers can embrace certain livable streets goals while ignoring the big picture of traffic. It's the kind of development the city will have to guide with a firmer hand in order to meet the sustainability goals of PlaNYC.

The New Domino's 2,200 residences would transform 11.2 acres just north of the Williamsburg Bridge, at a former sugar refinery about three-quarters of a mile from the two nearest subway stations. It fronts the Kent Avenue bike lane and the future path of the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway. At a site so large and so integral to the city's bike network, but with mediocre transit access, the developer's transportation decisions are critically important. 

Determining how much parking to construct is one such transportation decision, and on that score the New Domino abandons good planning.

The development's 1,694 off-street parking spaces would bring a flood of new motorists to Williamsburg. This is, in a way, intentional. The developer is attempting to match current car ownership rates in the area, according to Martin Hopp, who's overseeing the project design for Rafael Viñoly Architects. "We felt that it was important to accommodate the anticipated parking need on-site," said Hopp, "rather than to substantially increase vehicles circling the neighborhood for the already limited on-street spaces."

Building so many parking spaces will induce New Domino residents to drive. Research indicates that free parking spaces at home encourage New Yorkers to commute by car. "The amount of parking infrastructure to provide should be based on the neighborhood's and the city's street capacity, the city's goals in terms of carbon reduction, traffic flow, pedestrian safety and so forth," said UPenn professor Rachel Weinberger, co-author of the study "Guaranteed Parking -- Guaranteed Driving" [PDF]. "Deciding how many parking spaces to provide on the basis of what is profitable and/or on the rate of car ownership in the surrounding area is completely inappropriate and represents the city's abdication of its responsibility to protect the public health and welfare."

The expense of building underground parking spaces will cost the developer between $30,000 and $50,000 per space, according to Columbia planning professor David King. That means reducing parking would free up quite a lot of money, which could be spent instead on transit improvements. King recommended that New Domino provide shuttle buses to the subway, a practice that he said is common in Riverdale and some nearby suburbs, and that the developer construct less parking. "It's certainly worrisome that all this parking is being supplied," said King. "That's 1,700 cars and it's going to really overwhelm the community; there's no doubt about that."

Usually developers face pressure from local residents to provide parking for new arrivals, but in this case, some locals oppose the addition of so much storage for vehicles in their neighborhood. "It's interesting because they say they're going for LEED certification, they're going for green roofs," said Lacey Tauber of Neighbors Allied for Good Growth, a local advocacy group which has criticized parts of the New Domino plan. Her organization is calling for the developer to pare down the number of parking spaces to the city's required minimum -- 1,042 spots -- and to work with the MTA on providing more transit options. 

The decision to construct so much parking conflicts with the developer's significant investments in livable streets. The New Domino will add a four-block waterfront park, allowing people to walk to that segment of the East River shoreline for the first time in 150 years, said Hopp. The developer also intends to widen sidewalks and plant street trees to create a welcoming pedestrian environment. 

Tauber credits the developer for including significant ground-floor retail in its plans. Between the retail and the waterfront access, she said, "it will be very pedestrian friendly once the construction is done." Tauber also sees the New Domino's bike infrastructure as sufficient, noting that "they're pretty supportive" of local cyclists. Those improvements will include public bike racks outside and bike storage and changing rooms inside.

The developers of New Domino want to make their 11 acres an attractive place to walk and bike. But they also want to build nearly 1,700 parking spaces that will generate traffic and encroach upon pedestrians and cyclists. It's a contradiction that could be resolved if the city aligns its parking policy with urban design and sustainability goals. "For most U.S. cities simply doing away with parking minimums is a good first step in parking reform," said Weinberger. "For NYC it's imperative that the city think about parking maximums."

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DOT yesterday announced a competition for temporary designs to "refresh" Times Square while the agency develops plans for permanent pedestrian plazas.

According to a media release, the design phase for the permanent plazas will run for about the next 18 months, with construction set to begin in 2012.

In the meantime, artists and designers are invited to submit ideas for "economical, temporary surface treatments" to serve the needs of the 350,000 pedestrians who pass through Times Square every day. The winner will be selected by representatives from DOT, the Times Square Alliance, Mayor Bloomberg's office, and the Design Commission along with "one outside artist or arts advisor."

The winning design will fetch $15,000. Deadline is April 16.

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Following up on yesterday's post about family-friendly transit, which generated a raft of interesting comments on Streetsblog New York (and even more on our SF, DC and LA sites), we've got a dispatch from the front lines. Carla Saulter, who writes the always excellent Bus Chick blog out in Seattle, weighs in on how going from one kid to two has made her car-free existence significantly more challenging, although she remains characteristically undaunted:

Carla Saulter has her hands full when she rides the bus these days. (Photo: Bus Chick)

The second time I rode the bus with both babies…I was parenting solo, and, thanks to a morning errand in the neighborhood, arrived at the 48 stop mere seconds before the bus did. I quickly removed Chicklet from her stroller, but when I tried to fold it down, it wouldn't budge; a stack of papers I had tossed into the storage basket earlier that morning was in the way.

While I squatted on the sidewalk, trying to un-jam the stroller -- with one hand on the baby (to prevent him from tipping out of the sling-like carrier he's riding in until he gets big enough for the real deal) and one hand on Chicklet (to prevent her from running into the busy street we were waiting near) -- the bus pulled up, and folks started boarding. When they finished, I was still struggling.

The driver peered out the door and asked politely, "Are y'all coming?" but I was so embarrassed and discombobulated, I shook my head.

"I'll just catch the next one," I said, and then watched as he closed the doors and drove away.

The three of us did, in fact, wait the 15+ minutes for the next bus… By the time we finally made it to the park, I was stressed and tired, and we were late to meet our friends.

Carla's experience is certainly familiar to me. I've been the woman squatting on the sidewalk trying to fold the stroller and finally telling the bus to move on. There's no doubt that designing transit vehicles to accommodate strollers would make things a lot easier for parents, as several commenters noted yesterday.

Still, I think attitude has a lot to do with it as well. In my case, my own childhood experience of using transit rather than cars definitely played a factor. The first couple of years of my son's life in Brooklyn, we actually did own a car, but we only drove it when we were leaving town (and we happily gave it up years ago). When I was growing up in New York, it was just common wisdom that driving within the city was frustrating, slow, expensive and scary. I'm not sure when that perception changed, but it seems that it has. Many of the families I know today, even in Manhattan and Brooklyn neighborhoods where traveling by transit or foot is genuinely easy, now choose to drive.

My son's whole life -- he is now nearly eight -- we have done almost all our trips by transit, foot and bike. Sometimes we catch a ride with a friend, but he often prefers to walk. Every now and then we use a car service or cab. Once or twice a year we rent a Zipcar. On plenty of occasions, we have experienced a smoother, more enjoyable trip to our destination than friends who have traveled the same route by car.

The converse is occasionally true as well. But all in all, I have to agree with Carla when she says, "There are certainly challenges, but every choice comes with challenges, and I'll take mine over all of the drawbacks of driving."

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• Four Arrested in Microphone Queue-Jumping Episode at Brooklyn MTA Hearing (NY1, Post, Tracks)
• More MTA Misdirection From Electeds in the Bronx (NY1)
  
• JSK: Before Launching Bike-Share, NYC Needs Safer Bike Infrastructure (WNYC)
  
• Fox 5 Takes a Quick Look at the MTA Debt Bomb (via 2nd Ave Sagas)
  
• Ratner's Atlantic Yards Groundbreaking Scheduled to Happen in a Week (Bklyn Paper)
• TLC Chief: Cab-Sharing Needs Time to Catch On (Post, NY1, News, NYT)
• Why Is Penn Station So Confusing? (Slate)
• Amazing Car of the Future Gives Drivers Ability to Brake Whenever They Want (NYT)
• Street Reclamation, Somerville Style: New Plazas and Bike Lanes for Union Square (Globe)
• Bike Commuting Up Big in Melbourne (The Age)
  

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill
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The Senate today took its first steps towards voting on a new long-term federal transportation bill, with environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) vowing to take up a successor to the 2005 infrastructure law before 2011 and indicating she would use the House's already-introduced version as a framework.

Boxer described today's hearing in her panel as "the kickoff" of the upper chamber's drafting of new legislation governing U.S. road, transit, bridge, port, and rail policy. "Our intention is to hold a series of hearings and write the bill while you are still here and while Senator [George] Voinovich [R-OH] is still here," she told Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO), who will retire at the end of the year.

Such willingness to consider a new infrastructure bill before the Obama administration's preferred timeframe of next spring could help thaw the frosty relations between Boxer's panel and the House transportation committee, where chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) has raged against upper-chamber inaction for months.

But lawmakers and industry lobbies have a long way to go before they can sing from the same hymnal on the next transportation bill. Boxer asked representatives of the four lobbies appearing today -- the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO), the American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), the National Construction Alliance (NCA) and the Associated General Contractors (AGC) -- to parse Oberstar's bill "literally, with a pen" and let senators know which provisions they favored or disliked.

"We're going to take their bill and work from it," Boxer said of the House, which has proposed a $500 billion plan that streamlines 108 categories of formula-based federal transportation spending into four and includes dedicated funding for metropolitan area priorities.

Neither the transit industry nor transportation reform advocacy groups had a representative at the hearing. The four witnesses largely limited their comments to the economic need for a new long-term federal bill, with former AASHTO president Pete Rahn endorsing the price tag of the House bill but suggesting that he viewed it as overly solicitous to transit.

"We need a balanced bill that increases funding for both highways and transit," said Rahn, who leads the Missouri state DOT.

And though the biggest stumbling block facing the next federal transport bill -- namely, the lack of sufficient gas tax revenue to pay for it -- was lamented widely, few offered concrete solutions that would help Congress move forward more quickly.

"The problem we have in infrastructure is not ways to borrow more money," Rahn replied to a question about Build America Bonds, a successful if occasionally controversial infrastructure financing tool established in last year's stimulus law. "We need to find a way to pay for improvements ... We've now topped out the credit card."

Rahn urged lawmakers to address the declining utility of the gas tax, pointing to a "conflict" between its continued role as Washington's transportation revenue-raiser and the growing acknowledgment that oil consumption needs to decrease for environmental and national security reasons.

Griffith Company president Tom Foss, speaking for the AGC, said that industry groups are open to other options, such as increased tolling or an eventual transition to a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax. Still, he added, "the gas tax is still best way to fund" federal transportation law because "we can advertise [it] to the general population."

The hearing took place as the House prepares to vote as soon as tomorrow on a $15 billion jobs bill, already cleared by the Senate, that would extend the 2005 transport law until year's end. Boxer and fellow senators asked the witnesses to underscore the importance of that 10-month extension in conversations with the House, where some Democrats remain reluctant to embrace the upper chamber's jobs package.

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The MTA roadshow is in full swing, with raucous public hearings on service cuts drawing hundreds in Queens and Staten Island last night. Some press outlets are questioning whether the hearings actually get anything accomplished. It's a good question to chew on, since the MTA Board's options are limited by the agency's massive budget gap.

What's not in doubt, however, is that the hearings give our elected officials prime time to grandstand and deflect blame for their own role in bringing about the current mess. At each hearing, all the electeds take turns at the mic first. Hours can pass before a single straphanger speaks.

New York's state legislators have played an especially critical role in the transit funding crisis. In the last two years alone, the legislature has foiled two potential revenue streams for transit, congestion pricing and bridge tolls. The solution Albany could muster -- a regional payroll tax -- has come up far short of expectations. Then the state stole $143 million from the MTA in December to balance its own budget problems. Neither the state nor the city has kept up its share of funding for student MetroCard costs.

Our elected officials are the ones with the most power to help fund the MTA and avert drastic cuts, or at least put a fix on the agenda. Here's a sampling of what they said at the hearing in Queens last night.

Assembly Member José Peralta is currently running to replace Hiram Monserrate in the State Senate. Transit riders would be hard-pressed to do worse than bridge toll foe Monserrate, but they might have no choice.  Peralta's campaign website touts his opposition to congestion pricing, and he was a particularly vocal opponent of tolls on the East River bridges.

Last night, Peralta missed no opportunity to land a blow against the MTA -- telling the board "some of you aren't even paying attention" was the applause line of the night. "You have my word as a state legislator that we will continue to fight this," Peralta promised the crowd. His solution? Give the state more control over the MTA -- an idea that should draw grimaces from anyone familiar with Albany's recent history of governance.

Plenty of other electeds used their three minutes at the microphone exclusively to attack the MTA. None of these pols mentioned the role their legislative houses played in the MTA's fiscal crisis. Some choice excerpts:

• Assembly Member Grace Meng berated the MTA for cutting student MetroCards, telling the board that students "should expect that we've made a serious investment in their education." Of course, the state legislature where Meng serves has led the way in slashing the investment in student transport.
• A rep from State Senator Shirley Huntley's office argued that previous fare hikes should provide enough funding to withstand the financial battering brought on by the recession and years of legislative neglect.
• City Council Member Elizabeth Crowley told the board that unless the MTA "eliminates its most wasteful spending," kids will be hitchhiking to school.
• Council Member Karen Koslowitz's representative attacked the "years of mismanagement" at the MTA.
• Council Member Leroy Comrie, who voted against congestion pricing, focused on the MTA's proposed layoffs: "You're creating more unemployment."
  
• Another congestion pricing foe, Council Member Peter Vallone Jr., mustered the most indignant attack of the evening -- and was rewarded with a nice chunk of screen time on the Fox 5 11 o'clock news. "How dare you take our trains, take our buses, take our student MetroCards, while at the same time giving raises and giving friends and family free rides?” he asked. "How dare you?" Later on, in a moment that didn't make it into the Fox 5 segment, Vallone at least had the good sense to blame Albany as well, unlike many of his colleagues. 

Many officials didn't scapegoat the MTA directly, but neither did they offer anything resembling a constructive solution. Queens Borough President Helen Marshall, who opened the evening, typified this approach. "At a time when we are encouraging mass transit," said Marshall, "we shouldn't be cutting eight bus routes." Instead, she said, Queens need more from the MTA: new local and express buses, reopened LIRR stations, longer subway platforms, more ferry service. How to fund it all? "There has got to be a way," was all Marshall could offer.

Assembly Members Audrey Pfeffer and Karen Nolas and Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer all expressed their desire to keep New York City transit strong, without offering a way to either cut spending or raise revenue. 

Others, notably City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and transportation committee chair Jimmy Vacca, endorsed the Straphangers Campaign plan to redirect $140 million in flexible funding from the MTA's capital budget to its operating budget. While Quinn claims that the plan is enough to eliminate the cuts to Access-a-Ride, student MetroCards, and the worst cuts to subway and bus service, it's hard to see how a one-shot stimulus fix can stretch that far, let alone address the structural budget problems that are plaguing transit.

Only a few officials put responsibility in the right place or offered real prescriptions for maintaining transit service. "The city and state should not cut student fares," said Council Member Peter Koo at a rally outside the hearing. Surprisingly, Assembly Member David Weprin -- a leading congestion pricing foe as a member of City Council -- not only called for additional funding from the city, state, and feds, but said that he supported the Ravitch Commission's plan to generate more revenue, which included bridge tolls.

Of the electeds, no one emphasized the need for new revenue streams as directly as Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. "I didn't come here just to criticize the MTA for proposed service cuts and fare hikes," he said. "We need to find a way to make it financially viable." Stringer did not mention congestion pricing or bridge tolls, however, calling instead for Albany to reinstate the commuter tax, which he claimed would raise $500 million for the MTA.

Unlike many of their representatives, the students who gathered outside the hearing avoided attacks on the easy MTA target. The high schoolers held signs with pictures of the governor and mayor. "We're focusing our attention on Mayor Bloomberg," said Kevin Kang, one of the student activists, "because he's in charge of the whole education system. He needs to step it up so that whether the MTA funds [student MetroCards] or not, it gets resolved."

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Right now, Seattle is making as serious a commitment to transit as any city in the nation. Recently, Streetfilms got to take a tour of the newest addition to the city's network -- the 13-station Link Light Rail, which opened in mid-2009.

The route is beautiful, swift, and has great multi-modal connections. Service is frequent, with headways as short as 7 minutes during rush hour, and never longer than 15 minutes. And like many of the newest American light rail systems, the stations feature copious art.

Seattle has a lot of car commuters, but in a sign that many are looking for more efficient and environmentally friendly ways of getting to work, the new light rail line will be followed by several more additions to the city's transit network. As Seattle's Sound Transit CEO Joni Earl told us:

[Voters] in November 2008, by 57 percent -- which was a thrill in a recession economy -- voted to expand our light rail system, and our commuter rail system, and our buses... to add another 36 miles of light rail in the region. And to add 65 percent more capacity to our commuter rail system.

We'd like to thank everyone who talked to us for this shoot, especially Bruce Gray from Sound Transit, and Andrew Schmid for arranging it all. And of course a big shout out to the intrepid scribes over at Seattle Transit Blog, who cover the local transportation scene with zeal and gusto.

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As someone who is raising a child without a car in a transit-rich city, I sometimes need to be reminded that for many people in the United States, the reality of maintaining a family life without a personal motor vehicle is impractical -- or simply unthinkable, for a variety of reasons. This often holds true even if they live in a city with relatively good transit.

Many car-free families in the Streetsblog Network have posted great advice for people who want to have kids and take their transit too. Bus Chick and Car Free with Kids are particularly good resources. And today, network member blog Human Transit is featuring a guest post from EngineerScotty, father to "several" small children who is a frequent user of Portland's TriMet system. What's special about EngineerScotty's piece is that he makes some persuasive arguments about why it's good for transit agencies to encourage family ridership:

In training for a lifetime of riding transit. (Photo: lauratitian via Flickr)

Some may dismiss families with children as an unlikely (or undesirable) transit demographic, and propose that transit agencies instead focus on those demographics more likely to be transit-compatible, such as childless families and commuters. However, there are several problems with doing so.

Families who make  the decision to move to the burbs are more likely to abandon transit altogether.  A car will be a necessity -- and then a second car will often become attractive.  At that point, even the morning and evening commute for the family breadwinner(s) may be instead done by automobile.

Many trips made by families, especially daytime errands with smaller children, are made during off-peak hours -- an important consideration for agencies trying to load-balance (which is pretty much every agency).

Children who grow up comfortable with transit are more likely to use it as adults; those who grow up in the suburbs -- and whose main exposure to "transit" is an uncomfortable yellow school bus -- are more likely to continue an auto-centric lifestyle when they grow up.

Families with children are an important political constituency as well.  If they have no stake in good public transit, they are less likely to support it with their votes or their tax dollars.

Children who are of sufficient age to travel alone, but aren't old enough to drive a car, are a natural transit constituency.

Good points all. What are your experiences with kids and transit? Does your local system encourage or discourage families?

More from around the network: A compelling video from Next Stop STL about how how hospital workers in St. Louis need imperiled transit services to get to work. Hard Drive wonders why reporting broken glass in a bike lane doesn't result in quicker action -- this in the bike commuter haven of Portland, Oregon. And I Bike T.O. writes about how bike-sharing programs should be aimed at residents of a city, not tourists.

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Workers at the U.S. DOT and on transportation projects around the country are back on the job today after Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY) lost his politically hazardous battle against a 30-day extension of federal infrastructure law and unemployment benefits.

But while Republicans sought to distance themselves from Bunning's five-day stand against the $10 billion measure, sending Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) yesterday to ask the Kentuckian to yield, 18 of Bunning's fellow GOP senators ultimately voted with him to continue withholding federal transport funding unless its cost was offset by budget cuts elsewhere.

The extension passed on a 78-19 vote. Four members of Republican leadership voted with Bunning: Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (KY), GOP Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (TN), Conference Vice Chairman John Thune (SD), and campaign committee chief John Cornyn (TX).

"This week we saw the shutdown of many important highway and bridge projects, which caused great concern in many of our states," Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) said in a statement after the vote. "Now I look forward to a longer-term transportation extension with the legislation that has already passed the Senate, and which I believe will pass the House this week."

The legislation Boxer referred to, a $15 billion bill that would keep the nation's highway trust fund solvent until 2011, could get a vote in the House this week. But much depends on how Democratic leaders act to ease the objections of members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who want to see more infrastructure spending added to the Senate package, and the Blue Dogs, who have called for more revenue offsets to the bill.

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• What Do MTA Public Hearings Accomplish? (NYT, NY1, News, AMNY)
  
• Congestion Pricing Foe Peter Vallone Scores in Front of the Cameras at Queens MTA Hearing (Fox5)
• Service Reductions Will Cut Deeper Than MTA Lets On, Says Former Transit Planner (SAS)
• More Coverage of the 34th Street Transitway (Gothamist, Fast Co, SAS)
• DOT Planning Process Becoming More Open; Vacca Prepping Hearings on New Broadway (City Hall)
  
• Ed Glaeser: Stimulus Spending on Highways Goes to Waste (Economix)
• Brooklyn Man Who Killed for His Car Was Obsessed With It; Kelly Sympathizes (Post)
• Jim Bunning, Sucker for PRT Sinkhole, Finally Lets Spending Bill Pass (Avidor, NYT)
• Taxi Sharing Program Starts This Morning (WNYC, AMNY, WABC)
• Busy Bee Bike Shop Reopens With a New Business Model (City Room)
• JSK Discusses the NYC Transpo Agenda on Brian Lehrer Today (WNYC)

More headlines at Streetsblog Capitol Hill
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